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Math Labs qualify for multiple federal funding categories. Title I covers supplemental instruction for qualifying schools. Title IV-A covers well-rounded education and STEM enrichment. The PD workshop is a separate line item under Title II-A — professional development delivered by expert facilitators. For middle school labs with engineering contexts, CTE Perkins funds apply. The per-student cost runs $35–$40 for 15–20 hours of instruction — comparable to a consumable workbook. And because this is supplemental, it doesn't require a curriculum adoption budget line. It can come from enrichment, STEM, or afterschool funds.

I can send a budget justification letter your coordinator can use in a purchase request, and the funding guide with specific program details for each source.

Math Labs go in the time that already exists on the schedule — enrichment blocks, STEM periods, flex days, or the project-based time that many schools designate but struggle to fill with structured content. The teaching portal handles the session flow: slides advance the activity, a built-in timer keeps pacing, and Howie Templer's video walkthroughs show exactly what to do at each step. Lesson planning time is zero. Setup time is pull the pre-sorted bag and distribute. The teacher facilitates; the portal runs the lesson.

That's a strong foundation — manipulative work builds concrete understanding of individual concepts. Math Labs build on that by giving students a sustained context where they apply multiple concepts together over 10 or more sessions. In PRISM, students aren't just tiling to understand area — they're tiling areas, calculating material costs with multiplication, comparing perimeters, managing a budget, and presenting their department's design to the class. In Balance Lab, students aren't just using a balance to understand equality — they're solving increasingly complex equations across 14 lessons, progressing from physical balance to equation mat to paper and pencil. The extended timeline and project structure are what develop persistence, mathematical argumentation, and the ability to coordinate multiple skills in a complex context.

Digital platforms are strong at adaptive, individualized skill practice — and they're getting better. As they handle more of that core skill work, the time freed up needs structured mathematical content. Math Labs are built for that: collaborative, project-based application of the same standards students are practicing on screen. A student who practices area calculation on IXL and then spends two weeks designing a pet supply store using area measurement is working with the concept at two fundamentally different levels of understanding. The digital handles the practice; the lab handles the application. They're designed to work together.

The program is grounded in established research — embodied cognition work by Nathan, Roth, and others; productive disciplinary engagement frameworks from Engle and Conant; and research on physical manipulation and mathematical transfer from Martin and Schwartz. But we're a young program and we don't have a large-scale RCT. Rather than hand you a cherry-picked white paper, we'd rather help you evaluate this in your own context. We offer districts structured research design options: a delayed-start randomized trial within your schools, pre/post using your existing benchmark assessments, matched comparison with similar non-participating classrooms, or an implementation and perception study. We'll help structure it and we'll be transparent about results. The Evaluation page has the four designs with details.

Math Labs are aligned to the same standards the state assessment covers — we have session-by-session alignment documentation for CCSS, TEKS, Florida B.E.S.T., and seven other frameworks. Students are spending 15–20 additional hours applying those standards in a context that requires them to coordinate multiple skills, work collaboratively, and explain their reasoning — the kinds of tasks that appear on state assessments as problem-solving and application items.

Rather than make claims about score impact, we offer evaluation partnerships. If you pilot Math Labs, we'll help you set up a real study: pre/post using prior-year state assessment items or your existing benchmark, comparing participating and non-participating classrooms. We'll help structure the design and we'll be transparent about results.

The teaching portal is designed so any teacher can run Math Labs without prior training — slides advance the session, the timer keeps pacing, and Howie Templer's video walkthroughs demonstrate every activity. But we also offer a half-day PD workshop for schools that want deeper teacher investment. A nationally recognized math educator — PAEMST-level practitioners with genuine field credibility — leads teachers through a lab session themselves. They do the activity as learners, then unpack the teaching moves with the facilitator: how to launch a session, when to let teams struggle, when to intervene, how to facilitate the debrief. It's professional development on structuring hands-on, collaborative learning — useful regardless of what curriculum the school uses. $3,995, up to 30 teachers, fundable through Title II-A as a separate line item from the kits.